Landscape with Gentle Peaks
Details
- Author / creator
- Kan Tenju (Japanese, 1727–1795)
- Object type
- Painting
- Date or period
- possibly 1800s
- Dimensions summary
- Painting: 133.2 × 45.2 cm; Mounted: 216 × 67.7 cm
- Maker or workshop
- Kan Tenju
- Period / style
- Edo period
- Place of origin
- Japan
- Acquisition method
- Purchase
- Credit line
- Purchased with the V&A Purchase Grant Fund, 1978
About this object
A figure sits in a retreat tucked into the mountains near a waterfall. Kan Tenju was best known as a calligrapher and seal carver. Of Korean heritage, he was a patron of artist Ike Taiga (池大雅) (1723–1776), and a cousin of Taiga’s student Aoki Shukuya (青木 夙夜) (died 1802). The Chinese-style poem reads as follows:
Smoky mist in the mountain reflects light after the rain, Sunlight passes through the clouds to cast shadows of the trees, Alone in the sunset, I read a well-worn book.
Materials and technique
Hanging scroll; ink and light color on paper
Signature and marks
雨過嵐光煙 雲陽樹影諫 夕陽独在左？ 卷讀残書 (“Smoky mist in the mountain, reflects light after the rain Sunlight passes through the clouds to cast shadows of the trees Alone in the sunset/I read a well-worn book. (tr. Tianchu Gao)”); 丁亥九月 天寿写 (“Ninth month, 1767, copied out by Tenju”); These seals do not align satisfactorily with accepted seals of Kan Tenju. The prefatory seal is unread.: 韓氏大李 韓天壽印 (“Seals reading Kanshi Dairi and Seal [of] Kan Tenju”)
